IntSci Moderator: Topic one summary
Greetings,
We are just reaching the end of the first three days, the time period we allotted to the first topic.
Who have we heard from?
The response to this forum has been extremely gratifying and exiting to us as organizers. We have heard from a wide range of voices, from diverse and perhaps not surprisingly often highly interdisciplinary backgrounds. These include those working within academic environments such as ecological statistics, social geography, catchment hydrology, anthropology, management and communication. We have also heard from people working in policy and management settings, environmental education, and NGO development.
Thank you all for your contributions so far, we look forward to continuing this conversation with you and others who are newly entering the dialogue.
The ground we have covered so far
The intention of topic one was to begin this E-conference by bringing us on to the ‘same page’. As organizers we recognized that the conversation we wanted to have was with people who might have an interest in “integrated research for sustainability” from a variety of different backgrounds, that would bring with them their own lexicon, theory and practice. Not surprisingly the conversation has moved us well beyond just familiarity with the topic and we have progressed through a number of themes.
The challenges of integrated science. A number of contributors have argued that the kind of science we are looking at is not “new” but draws on historic traditions of cross disciplinary, holistic enquiry [M.McCallum, A. Fenemor] or is rather a new linking of existing disciplinary enquiry platforms [C. Meurk]. The suggestion by Elery Hamilton Smith that what we are proposing is “changing the structures and processes we use to arrive at an optimal state of learning” rather than engaging in a new science is echoed by others [e.g., Johnathon Long]
Discussion has considered the challenges of interdisciplinary research in academic environments, including the barriers and disincentives to cross disciplinary study [C. Meurk] and to becoming a generalist in an environment that rewards discipline based work [B.Dick].
To move us forward Frederik Oberthur calls for “a critical mass of working examples of successful integrations between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ research. To which is added a request by Sue Lenox for “collaborative frameworks between different research systems to learn our way forward…” Frank Scherr adds that there is a need for ideas and standards of how to communicate between science and how to create and sustain knowledge.
Valerie Brown, Richard Bawden, Ann Dale, Gay Nicholoson and others direct the conversation towards understanding integrated science as being beyond academic interdisciplinarity. Placing science “in the wider knowledge hierarchy of the social context in which it works”. This reaches out to a need for systems thinking - “mindfully integrating ourselves into our ecosphere…we can learn how to become ‘systemic beings through the transformations of our epistemes” [Richard Bawden].
In response a number of contributors have offered ways of understanding integrated science, references and frameworks to support linking hard and soft systems [Ashwani Vasishth, Lorrae Van Kerkhoff, Janita Vos, Kerry Cochrane, David Waltner –Toews]
Johnathon Long questions whether it is a change in institutional arrangements that is necessary to support integrated science and requests stories of where this has happened. This is followed by Fredrik Oberthur’s suggestion that “what is mostly needed are functioning tools that bring about learning and empathy ‘gently forcing’ scientists and experts to think beyond the borders of their own discipline. Similarly Rebecca Lines-Kelly comments that “in my experience specialists often need to be helped to realize the context they are working in”. Tom, a social geographer from Australia offers his experience of placed-based community research as a valuable way of doing integrated research and Luis Guitierrez proposes a series of steps to promote team work, and group thinking amongst different disciplines.
After three days of consideration about whether Integrated Science is in fact a ‘new’ science Max Finlayson and Alistair Scott proffer a pragmatic interpretation “if we can make progress by calling this a new science – so be it” [Max Finlayson].
Adaptive Management and Integrated model development
Although we intended the above concepts for discussion within topic 2 of the conference already these ideas are being brought forward. Dierdre Wilcock and Ashwari Vasishth converse over differing viewpoints on the readiness for institutions, and groups to undertake Adaptive Management, while Phil Henshaw poses some interesting ideas around the role of modeling in science. These are great lead ins to the next phases of our exchange.